Hello, my name is Erin Jaworski. I am 17 years old and I just graduated from High School. I will be attending the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs in the fall and majoring in forensics.  I hope to become a crime scene investigator and analyst.  I am in Angel Fire 4-H club. I’ve been in 4-H for majority of my life, this being my tenth year in 4-H. This year I am enrolled in the poultry project.  I’m showing market geese and turkeys, as well as call ducks and chickens. Although my hobbies consist of mostly artistic things, I have always loved working with animals. The joy I get from owning and taking care of animals and livestock is the main reason I do 4-H. But I also enjoy doing the community service and fundraising that we do as a club.  This will be my last year in 4-H, so I am trying to spend as much time enjoying it and creating memories that I will have forever.  I have gained so much from this program, and am so thankful for everything 4-H has offered me.

This year I have raised several broad breasted white turkeys for market. However, I will only be taking two to the fair. These two will be the ones that I think are the best. I have been feeding them turkey starter (28% protein) and although I would normally switch them to lower protein at this point, I am planning to bring hens to fair. Since hens grow slower and are smaller than toms, I am keeping them on a high protein feed. Though toms get bigger they can easily go over the weight limit and hens usually have better breast meat fleshing than toms. You want the breast meat to be wide throughout the whole body all the way to the keel bone, you do not want it to look heart shaped. Toms do usually get better muscle development in their legs. Ideally, I would want a bird that has both features so as fair gets closer I will focus on raising a bird that has the best overall condition. Over the past few years, I have always chosen to bring hens to fair rather than toms. As stated before, toms grow so much faster and it’s hard to control how much they eat, which usually makes them too heavy to bring to the fair. However, I will still do my best to give them the best conditions as they will still be used for market. I will continue to monitor the weights over the next few weeks in order to make sure I am bringing my best bird to fair. 

I hope that I get to meet you this year at the El Paso County Fair Junior Livestock Auction on July 20, 2024 at 1:00!  Thank you for allowing me to tell you about my project and thank you for supporting the youth in 4-H, as none of this would be possible without you.